The fact that they are adding this now, after the fact that the game is out, to appease people who don't have enough "shinies" and need a sense of progression (whatever happened to the idea that "the best gear is early on, the upgrades are all cosmetic?"). If Ascended Gear was just to be for the dungeon and only useful for the dungeon, it would be Exotic Gear with an Infusion slot. It would not have higher stats. Problem is, it is higher stats, doesn't matter how miniscule it is. That someone who hasn't been playing (took time off) will legitimately be behind the curve, against their idea of super casual "this will never happen to you". And that they've flat out said straight to everyone's face, that this is a Continued idea of progression, implementing badges-of-justice ways of catching up as they push it farther... WarCraft was hated on pretty hard in these boards because it was a "gear grind" despite how long the patches were to get said gear. Why is patching in a new tier treated as if it's only a one-time thing (when ANet specifically spells it out for you that it's not), and that it being stretched out over an unspecified time suddenly makes it okay?

The hypocrisy both of the company, and of the fans casual acceptance (or proclaiming any distaste for it as QQ, not that you've done here) is just a backhand across the face.

Except the difference between Ascended gear and Exotics is so miniscule it really doesn't matter. You lose the ability to put runes in it and for the most part the infusions are tiny stats boosts bundled with Agony Resistance. Ascended gear has one purpose, Fractals, and that's it.

Originally Posted by zurgs

Or you wish to play WvW on a level playing field or play the product you bought on the basis it was sold to you.

It's been said multiple times that Ascended gear will be available somehow through WvW, right now all there is is rings and a back piece so settle down. Also, if you think that your individual gear actually matters in WvW you're just not paying attention.

Originally Posted by Kelesti

Only thing I added was the words "Mass Exodus" infront of the title, nothing more, nothing less, because "So we are 2/2 up till now, when will be the next time" really doesn't help anyone.

It's still misleading. There is no "Mass Exodus" just the same handful of people threatening to leave because they're unhappy. Sure I bet people quit over it but there's been no Mass Exodus at all that I've noticed. I still login to an Overflow in Lion's Arch since launch. People tend to overstate their case...

I'm going to blatantly dodge that question (it's probably a trap anyway, you know how these things go) and say that I suppose there's a scale of content and different players fall in different places on that scale.

Some people love the "map completion" thing, and would probably still love it even if there were no hearts or even vistas, just a collection of Points of Interest to bounce around from. Other people like myself would rather pass on just walking around and instead have some challenge or more depth of interaction or something.

However, even though that wishy-washy defintion of content is true, there's still the objective definitions of development and volume/depth of content, etc etc. Frankly I don't think anyone could sit down and look at "Map Completion" and seriously say that it's in the same league of (depth/quality/volume/whatever) of content as dungeon/raid/pvp/etc offerings that you'd expect from games.

And again, there's nothing WRONG with map completion on it's own. It's the fact that it is frequently offered up as a major and important element of the content that's objectionable to me.

My question is not about map completion. Everyone will see content as something different. My daughter hasn't completed 10% of the world. She is happy to do the first 2 maps over and over. My 5 year old did one of the jumping puzzles on my char. I was seriously surprised and she enjoyed that immensely.

I think it's really unfair of you to say that there is "no" content. It may not be the type of content that is your cup of tea but the amount that they have is nothing short of amazing. What do they have (as I see it):

I may have the numbers slightly out but you get the picture. They put in a lot of content. You may not like all of it all but it's disingenuous to say that there is no content. A lot of players have spent well over 300 hours in game. That's like 2 months working full time (9am-5pm) every work day.

It's not WOW. They don't have 8 years of legacy with 10 million odd subscribers pouring money into content. MoP added about 10 new zones, 1 new race, 1 new class, some mini games and some new raids and dungeons. They also tweaked the talents. That's it. Some people got bored quickly and others didn't. IMHO the content included with GW2 was more than what was included with MoP. A lot more. It's no where near to what's included with WOW in total but GW2 will get there. They will add more content as they go along but what they included at release is quite impressive.

Now I am asking you not to dodge again. What content do you think is missing from GW2 because from my perspective there is an awful lot in there and I am not talking about 100% map completion. I am talking about real content.

You lose the ability to put runes in it and for the most part the infusions are tiny stats boosts bundled with Agony Resistance. Ascended gear has one purpose, Fractals, and that's it.

Who said you couldn't put runes in Ascended armor, anyway? Seems to be an assumption going around.

31 complete zones.

"Zones" by themselves aren't content. There has to be things in them, so that's not really a fair bullet point. (Why are the zones all using a 1999 EverQuest model of square zones with single exit/entry points and loading screens, anyway?)

30+ Jumping Puzzles

Jumping puzzles are cool, I'll agree. I wouldn't pay to do them, though, and they quickly get pretty repetitive. Few of them have very much "meat on the bones" so to speak.

15 odd dungeons

That one I'll readily agree with. I don't like the dungeons and think they're indicative of a development team that has little to no experience designing thing kind of content and very poor QA, but they ARE there and some people like them.

8 Professions
5 Races

Ehhhh, honestly? It's 2012. We're really past the point where talking about how many different races you have in your game is all that impressive anymore.

Variable Personal Stories

Again, I'll give this one to you, but I will say that they're not really variable at all, and (generally) really aren't personal. You're basically watching a very uninspired, standard fantasy-model story called "The Saga of Trahearne".

8 crafting professions

Crafting professions are awful. I'm serious, they come off as nothing more than a leveling gimmick. You can 1-400 any profession in very short order without much effort and have a full set of exotic recpies right from the vendor, and yet feel as though you have absolutely nothing meaningful. I mean, you're right...they're there...but they're indicative of the lack of polish, effort and QA that absolutely pervades the entire game.

Mini games

That one is a clear win for you, I think. Some of the mini-games (thinking mostly the halloween ones, but not entirely) were pretty fun a few times.

WvWvW
PVP

Well, these kinda go together, hard to give them separate bullet points. I'm pretty frustrated with the design of WvW and feel like the sPvP maps are pretty shoddily designed for the most part, but the "Even playing field" of sPvP is a big win.

Holiday events

Only seen one so far, and parts of it were good. A lot of it was just more mindless collecting that's - once again - indicative of the overall design of the game. Clock Tower was good times though, glad I did that.

All in all there's a lot of "busywork" sort of stuff in the game, but nothing that I'd sit down and be excited to do. In the time I played it just felt like this completely unremarkable blur of destroying pack after pack of completely unthreatening mobs that seemed to be everywhere, simply by bashing my face on my keyboard. My performance never seemed to matter, getting "good" at my class never seemed to matter, working on strategies with other people never seemed to matter, how I approached fights never seemed to matter, I was never excited or challenged by an encounter...again, just this unmemorable blur of mowing down pack after pack of helpless critters, over and over.

Who said you couldn't put runes in Ascended armor, anyway? Seems to be an assumption going around.

"Ascended items only have an Infusion slot, and not a normal upgrade slot. Bonuses from normal upgrade slots are instead built into the item itself. "

From the gw2 wiki. You get some bonus stats rolled into the item itself based on what you use to craft it, but you lose things like 6 slot rune bonuses etc, that's in addition to a +165 stat and a +50 stat, so ofc it has a bit more stats rolled into it. The net effect should be at or near 0 when compared to Exotics.

"Ascended items only have an Infusion slot, and not a normal upgrade slot. Bonuses from normal upgrade slots are instead built into the item itself. "

From the gw2 wiki. You get some bonus stats rolled into the item itself based on what you use to craft it, but you lose things like 6 slot rune bonuses etc, that's in addition to a +165 stat and a +50 stat, so ofc it has a bit more stats rolled into it. The net effect should be at or near 0 when compared to Exotics.

That's only the current Ascended items, which never had Rune or Sigil slots to begin with, and where the gem typically came with the item to begin with when crafted, therefore simply removing the slot and baking in the appropriately prefixed gem makes sense.

There's nothing saying that Ascended armor or weapons will be missing the normal upgrade slots, and in fact it'd be - quite frankly - completely stupid for that to be the case.

That's only the current Ascended items, which never had Rune or Sigil slots to begin with, and where the gem typically came with the item to begin with when crafted, therefore simply removing the slot and baking in the appropriately prefixed gem makes sense.

There's nothing saying that Ascended armor or weapons will be missing the normal upgrade slots, and in fact it'd be - quite frankly - completely stupid for that to be the case.

Just have to wait and see, the impression I've been getting is that all Ascended gear is that way. Your bonus stats are baked into it when you craft it leaving only an Infusion slot available, which thus far is like +5 to a stat.

w
as for the free trial thing and the servers,well the servers population at any time shows how many people play at that given time not how many are registered at that server.So up till now they have quite some healthy population so there is no use to try and cook numbers with free trials.Free trials were just PR that any company does.

No the server 'populations' are entirely based on how many accounts are on that realm which makes them a bit misleading about how many people are actually actively playing at that time.

I find your defense of Anet funny because people are willing to pay $15/mth for a superior bug-free experience, especially if they like grinding for vertical progression.

Me? I don't even play WoW, but just because it did some things right doesn't justify GW2 to keep failing at it.

I wouldnt call any of the subscription MMO's either superior or bug-free. Different =\= superior, different strokes for different folks and all that. Some will find one approach superior but not everybody will. As to bug free... you've played other MMO's right? There is no such thing as a bug-free MMO no mater how much your willing to fork over. They are just too big and have too many interconected systems to ever be bug free. The critical factor is how responsive the dev's are in fixing the problems. Put on the way back glasses and take off the rose colored nostalgia filter and you'd realize that even WoW was buggy as hell right after launch and still has nasty bugs crop up to this day. The difference is they have 7 (or is it 8 now) years to stomp most of the bugs out of the core of the game and now most of their bugs have to do with new changes. GW2 is so new it still has core bugs to be ironed out on top of new things added each patch.

I'm inclined to believe that WoW and it's clones has given us a bias, and maybe we just don't know how to handle this game/experience yet. The guy who said you should combine PvE and PvP is right, and guilds really help you stay, the last karka event this weekend was so much fun because of the awesome people I did it with.

We need to try to play different. Not see ascended items and handle the Fractals of the Mists as if it's a WoW tier. People are talking about needing the gear, but I'm always using my half finished Magic Find gear, and I still do well, even when I sacrifice a bunch of stats for the magic find. The only important thing about that gear is Agony resistance, which you won't see unless you get really deep into the Fractals. And then you pretty much already kind of lives there, so what's to hate?

WvWvW with a dedicated guild is a lot of fun, too, and a PvP match once in a while is great too. This coming from me who pretty much never did PvP in WoW.
And doing stuff that passively helps me earn my legendary is great too, running around the world, going where I please, slowly getting materials for my Gift of Wood and other stuff, with a chance to get my precursor to really get things kicking.

"Zones" by themselves aren't content. There has to be things in them, so that's not really a fair bullet point. (Why are the zones all using a 1999 EverQuest model of square zones with single exit/entry points and loading screens, anyway?)

I don't know what the technical reasons for the zones loading but it's not really an issue in my book. I almost never run between zones. I almost always use waypoints. On the zones side, of course it's a fair point. There are hearts, DE, etc in those zones. Of course there are a lot of similar types of events (collect, protect, kill, escort, repair, heal) but that applies to MMO's. GW2 actually does quite well by often including different ways to succeed and has added some nice twists. I think the zones also do provide some nice variety. I especially like the way that the straits work, where there is an string of events as you progress through the zone. I am not a fan of the water fights despite being quite strong there but that's personal preference. The point on the zones is just that. There is a lot going on and you can't say it's not content just because you don't enjoy them. I have yet to find a zone that I don't enjoy. Scratch that, I didn't enjoy the Silvari starting zone much but then again, I didn't play it for very long.

Jumping puzzles are cool, I'll agree. I wouldn't pay to do them, though, and they quickly get pretty repetitive. Few of them have very much "meat on the bones" so to speak.

Raids are cool but they quickly get repetitive, dungeons are cool but they quickly get repetitive, etc. Different strokes.

Ehhhh, honestly? It's 2012. We're really past the point where talking about how many different races you have in your game is all that impressive anymore.

Why do people play alts if they are not different? They provide a different look at the content. Different skills, play styles, etc. If it's nothing spectacular then why did Blizzard include a new race and class? I am not say that it's a differentiator between GW2 and other MMO's but it does count, in a way, as content.

Again, I'll give this one to you, but I will say that they're not really variable at all, and (generally) really aren't personal. You're basically watching a very uninspired, standard fantasy-model story called "The Saga of Trahearne".

I remember a while back you complained about the Zaitan battle. It was a day or so later when one of my guild members was commenting on how epic the Zaitan fight was. I am not a Trahearne fan but the story is there and appeals to a lot of people. It's one of the highlights for my daughter.

Crafting professions are awful. I'm serious, they come off as nothing more than a leveling gimmick. You can 1-400 any profession in very short order without much effort and have a full set of exotic recpies right from the vendor, and yet feel as though you have absolutely nothing meaningful. I mean, you're right...they're there...but they're indicative of the lack of polish, effort and QA that absolutely pervades the entire game.

On one hand, I agree with you, GW2 does lack polish in a lot of areas. On the other hand, I like what they did with discoveries and crafting. Yes, it's easy to craft a set of exotics. That was the point and even a slight change to that with the Ascended armor has caused an uproar. I personally prefer the GW2 mechanic to grinding dailies for rep to buy recipes. I would put some sort of limiter to make exotics take a bit longer to craft (CD of some sort, e.g. you get 7 x's per week and need to use a few for every exotic you craft) but that's my opinion. Others disagree.

Only seen one so far, and parts of it were good. A lot of it was just more mindless collecting that's - once again - indicative of the overall design of the game. Clock Tower was good times though, glad I did that.

All in all there's a lot of "busywork" sort of stuff in the game, but nothing that I'd sit down and be excited to do. In the time I played it just felt like this completely unremarkable blur of destroying pack after pack of completely unthreatening mobs that seemed to be everywhere, simply by bashing my face on my keyboard. My performance never seemed to matter, getting "good" at my class never seemed to matter, working on strategies with other people never seemed to matter, how I approached fights never seemed to matter, I was never excited or challenged by an encounter...again, just this unmemorable blur of mowing down pack after pack of helpless critters, over and over.

That would be your impression. It doesn't take anything away from the fact that it is content. Maybe not your kind of content, but it's content. Have you tried to do Shatterer with 10 people. It's a really interesting fight. You can't just zerg your way through it. The helping factor that's part of GW starts to become a problem in situations where you have 50+ people. It's close to impossible to design a fight that can scale from 10 to 50 random people. If you want a nice challenge, try the temple of Balthazar fight in the Straits of Devastation. It's challenging enough that I have only seen the Karma vendor twice. Try fractions, I have heard good things about those too.

My point remains. You complain that there is no content but there is plenty. It's not your cup of tea, fine, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I am not saying it's perfect, far from it. Some events in Orr are impossible with just 1 person and that shouldn't be the case. I should be able to (with difficulty) succeed in an event. Impossible with 1 person and trivial with 5 is crazy. I also don't like the way they push the cash shop. It could be far more subtle. I have about 1100 gems but that's bought through gold, not cash. I do like the Gold->Gems and Gems->Gold option, I just think they should include better value for money in the gems area. A/Net will improve these and other things over time and they will add more to the game.

My point remains. You complain that there is no content but there is plenty. It's not your cup of tea, fine, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Yah, like I said earlier, there's a lot of content that I'm sure a lot of people like. People fall all over that spectrum of content, and that's fine. Me, I'm not a fan of it...I wanted to be, I really did, but it just didn't work out. I suppose if something isn't your cup of tea to begin with, you'll be more liable to dismiss it as not being great content, so I suppose I'm guilty of that in some ways.

Also, all in all, good answers there. I suppose in the end what matters is how you feel about the game, even if you can't put it into words or describe it.

It's been said multiple times that Ascended gear will be available somehow through WvW, right now all there is is rings and a back piece so settle down. Also, if you think that your individual gear actually matters in WvW you're just not paying attention.

Not everyone is a scrub Pver that runs around following the zerg, so yes it does matter and it will matter even more when they add it to more slots, furthermore it matters, becasue it is not the game they sold to us in interviews, Q&A sessions, their manifesto, etc, if I wanted a gear grind / gear stat progression I would play another game becasue they do it far better and they do PvE (the dungeons/raids aspect) far better.

Hence why I and many others have quit / got refunds / are off to games like PS2, I didn't buy GW2 to play another (in Mike O'Briens words) "WoW 2.0" clone, from a company who are happy to do a total u-turn on their alleged principles a mere 3 months into the game.

Yah, like I said earlier, there's a lot of content that I'm sure a lot of people like. People fall all over that spectrum of content, and that's fine. Me, I'm not a fan of it...I wanted to be, I really did, but it just didn't work out. I suppose if something isn't your cup of tea to begin with, you'll be more liable to dismiss it as not being great content, so I suppose I'm guilty of that in some ways.

Also, all in all, good answers there. I suppose in the end what matters is how you feel about the game, even if you can't put it into words or describe it.

so in other words you think it's going to hurt the people who think WvW is about deathmatching small groups of players and doing nothing to complete objectives. Got it. Probably a good thing that you quit.

Except the difference between Ascended gear and Exotics is so miniscule it really doesn't matter. You lose the ability to put runes in it and for the most part the infusions are tiny stats boosts bundled with Agony Resistance. Ascended gear has one purpose, Fractals, and that's it.

"Except the difference between Heroic gear and Regular gear is so miniscule, it really doesn't matter [...] Heroic Gear has one purpose, Heroic Raiding, and that's it."

It's a bullshit argument when it's in WarCraft's court, but that's completely viable here? I'm sorry, but no, that response can go to hell.

It's still misleading. There is no "Mass Exodus" just the same handful of people threatening to leave because they're unhappy. Sure I bet people quit over it but there's been no Mass Exodus at all that I've noticed. I still login to an Overflow in Lion's Arch since launch. People tend to overstate their case...

Notice the question-mark in "Mass Exodus?". You see it up there? Yeah, I do too.

so in other words you think it's going to hurt the people who think WvW is about deathmatching small groups of players and doing nothing to complete objectives. Got it. Probably a good thing that you quit.

Not at all, we let the scrub Pvers run around with the zerg, whilst organised small groups go and do what needs to be done such as keeping supply cut off, scouting, escorting dollys when we've just captured a keep/garrison to get the upgrades going, etc, which means we do a lot of small group fighting and are often outnumbered, so yes stats do make a difference.

I see you also conveniently ignored the other half of my reason, as in I was sold a game under false pretences, which speaks volumes.

"Except the difference between Heroic gear and Regular gear is so miniscule, it really doesn't matter [...] Heroic Gear has one purpose, Heroic Raiding, and that's it."

It's a bullshit argument when it's in WarCraft's court, but that's completely viable here? I'm sorry, but no, that response can go to hell.

Except in terms of WoW iLvL there is a much larger gap, 10-12% on average. It's also much more feasible to obtain a full set of Heroic gear in a very short amount of time, as opposed to Ascended gear. You're comparing apples to oranges...

That's also not what viable means.

---------- Post added 2012-11-19 at 06:47 PM ----------

Originally Posted by zurgs

Not at all, we let the scrub Pvers run around with the zerg, whilst organised small groups go and do what needs to be done such as keeping supply cut off, scouting, escorting dollys when we've just captured a keep/garrison to get the upgrades going, etc, which means we do a lot of small group fighting and are often outnumbered, so yes stats do make a difference.

I see you also conveniently ignored the other half of my reason, as in the game I was sold under false pretences, which speaks volumes.

No I ignored the rest of it in my response because it's more uneducated derp and didn't warrant a response. If you're outnumbered, small increments in stats on gear isn't going to turn the tide.

Changed the thread's title to give a little more... idea as to what people may/may not be walking into. And I'd [like] to keep this thread going for a bit, without open hostility, so as a reminder
[watch your tone and let's keep this peaceful, thanks-- <3 Kel]

You need to check yourself and just step off the e-thug thing you're trying to put up. Let the people talk, let the forums actually be forums, the moderators in mmochampion are the biggest scum on the internet. fuck yourselves.

If you have issues with moderation, PM me or Boubouille. Do not try to derail the thread. --Sunshine